Saturday, October 18, 2014

The End Of Softball (And No, I Didn't Play So Poorly They Canceled The Sport)

www.greeleytribune.com

Another
softball game went in the books this week without me completely 100% embarrassing
myself and, as far as I can tell, society has yet to crumble. Although to be
honest, the fact that this Ebola thing has coincided with my rise as a below-average
softball player has me a little concerned. Makes wonder what would happen if I
ever hit, I don’t know, say a double.

Last
night’s game was the regular season finale and, considering I’m not currently
slated to play in next week’s playoff game, it could be my last game of the
season. Or, potentially, my last game ever, depending on whether or not the
team makes the tactical mistake of allowing everyone in the company to play
again.

The potential finality of the game was
something I hadn’t considered until literally just a few minutes ago. Had I known,
you can rest assured I would have put a tremendous amount of pressure on
myself, failed to even come close to meeting my own expectations, and spent
most of the game caught in a tidal wave of nostalgia over events both great and
small. “This may be my last ever at-bat.” “This could be my last ever time
taking the field.” “This could be the last time I ever sit on this exact bench.”

Instead,
I went out there last night and did pretty much what I’ve done for most of this
season: Be perfectly mediocre. Sure, last week’s game was a bit worse than
mediocre, the week before was a little better, but when you take the whole
thing into consideration, I’m hovering around the middle.

There
were a couple of changes to the lineup. For one thing, I was shifted to third
in the batting order, up from second to last which is where I was last week. I
can’t explain the strategy behind this as three-hole hitters tend to have a
little bit of pop and be good at getting on base, neither of which describe me,
but whatever. I’m happy when people remember to write my name down, I don’t
care about the order.

Changes
occurred on the defensive side of things, as well. As you know, I’ve spent most
of the season toiling away in the dead of right field, occasionally catching
things, but mostly just standing around, watching balls fly as far away from me
as my team could manage. That’s not a complaint, that’s just sound strategy.
But last night, I was moved to shortstop. The most athletic, important, dare-devilly
position there … no I wasn’t. I did get a new position, but that position was
right center. Still a dead zone, but I would be closer to the action. There was
a scare where it looked as if I might have to play centerfield all by my lonesome,
but luckily someone had miscounted somewhere and we had one more player than we
thought.

Let’s
start in the field. Despite the other team having a decent number of lefties, I
had another light night. I only had one ball hit well over my head, I got to
run in field a few grounders and line drives that dropped and found their way
into the outfield, but that was about it. There was one play where the ball was
rolling quickly towards me, I was running quickly towards it and because my
depth perception is occasionally terrible, I ran right by it. The ball and I were
like two trains passing each other on opposite tracks. Outside of that, though,
it was a fairly quiet night over on the right side of the field once again.

But
what about at the plate? Last week I managed to do the very-near impossible and
strike out twice in slow pitch softball, once swinging and once looking. Remember,
this week I felt just the usual amount of self-imposed pressure to not suck and
none of the added weight that would come if I’d realized it could be my last
game. First time up, I have no idea what happened. I honestly don’t remember. I
know I didn’t get on base, but how I got out, I can’t say. I know it wasn’t a
strike out though. I didn’t do that at all last night. I think ground out,
maybe?

Second
time up, though, line drive over the head of the shortstop. Base hit! Good
contact too, if I do say so myself. I ended up getting stranded at first, but
so it goes. Third trip to the plate, I grounded into a fielder’s choice. The fielders
didn’t choose to throw me out and a few batters later I was crossing the plate
for my fifth, FIFTH, run of the season. That’s six more runs than I thought I would
get before the season (I thought I might get a hit and then run the wrong way
around the bases, resulting in a negative run per my understanding of
baseball/softball rules).

My last at bat, though. This is the
thing legends are made out of. I went up there. Took a ball which I will almost
never do. I’ve probably swung at 90% of the pitches that have been thrown my
way this year. I have no ability to tell what’s a strike and what’s not so as
long as the ball isn’t rolling on the ground or 20 feet over my head, there’s a
good chance I’ll swing. Then, I took another one because I was feeling bold.
The count was 3-1 (everyone starts with a 1-1 count). One foul tip later, the
count was full. Had I known this could be my last game, the pressure of facing
a full count late in the game would have caused me to go full-Alex Mack and
just turn myself into a puddle and slip away.

But again, I didn’t know, so as the
pitch came in, I swung with all my might and … I made the best contact I’ve
ever made. I could feel it. I hit the ball right on the screws as they say. It
was a sight to behold, let me tell you. That ball soaring majestically, past
the pitcher, out of the infield, into the outfield, going, going, going … right
into the glove of the shortstop who’d been playing in shallow left center,
which is the only direction the ball ever goes in when I make contact. Still,
even though it was an out, that was damn good contact.

We ended up losing the game pretty
resoundingly by an unknown score. The other team was really good. They had one
guy who could hit the ball in whatever direction he wanted. It was incredible.

That drops our team record to 2-4
on the season. Individually, I’m at 5 games played, 6-18 for an even .300
batting average with 5 runs scored and a big fat zero RBIs. I do also have 3
strikeouts on the season to my credit.

The playoffs begin next week and as
I said, I’m not scheduled to play, but expect a recap if I do. Otherwise, this
has been fun. I’m sorry my return to softball didn’t end up being as catastrophically
bad as it probably should have been, but I’d like to think we still had some
fun.